Thursday, March 2, 2017

What Gives? Woe is Me....

Just when I thought the world was conspiring to put TNA back where they wanted to be, TNA loses some of their best talents. The Bennets, The Hardys, and Drew Galloway have all cut ties with the little company that once could. The sad part of this story is really two-fold.

On the one side, Jeff Jarrett, who is now serving as a chief officer of sorts wasn't a big fan of the "broken universe" stuff, which arguably has been the most differentiating aspect of TNA television in the past 5-6 years. That said, it should be mentioned that in a shocking turn of events, not only was the entire set of performers low-balled on contractual pay, in the case of the Hardys, there was a clause stating that TNA would receive 10% of everything they earn OUTSIDE of TNA while under contract for 2 years.

On the other side of things, it has been reported that a significant amount of money was offered to Jarrett should he be able to convince significant players to take cuts in pay. In other words, "we'll pay you to take money away from the people putting on a show."

I am not at all pleased with this development and it casts more than a negative shadow on all things TNA and, while I'm a fan of the product, I find myself hoping more people leave to prove a finer point: you can't take money from people who are putting their livelihoods on the line a few times a month for a paycheck. This isn't a carpenter or a plumber or another craft you can simply find cheaper replacements to do the same quality job. No, this is something VERY different. TNA will never again see another AJ Styles or Bobby Roode or Samoa Joe or anyone else who could do the same work or better for the price point they operated under. Not possible.

As for the rest of the story? The devil is in the details and those aren't things I am privy to, so I won't speculate, but suffice it to say that Jeff Jarrett and company has made a very large tactical error and I can only hope he is able to learn from that before it's too late to correct it.

If there is any kind of silver lining, this might be it or maybe not. Feelers have been sent out of Rey Mysterio, Matt Morgan, and others who either worked for TNA in the past or have been courted by the, in the past few years anyway. While I'm not opposed to using these guys to help fill spots left by the other players, it doesn't excuse the kind of disrespect for the craft put on display so far. That said, I DO want to see some these players come in or back as the case may be from a purely selfish perspective of just wanting to see what TNA could do if finally giving Matt Morgan the proper push and a run at the top of the company.

Maybe I'm overreacting to all of the news coming out of TNA these days, but I get this ominous vibe coming out of there these days and with WWE FINALLY getting over this stigma of former TNA talent contributing details to the bottom line and allowing their talents to shine where they may, maybe this is TNA's swan song.